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America is regulating itself to death. We are becoming more socialist.

In NYC, van owners began covering routes that didn't get enough traffic for buses, charging a buck for each ride (which was less than the bus fare at the time). The city eventually agreed to let them run routes that the buses weren't running, but even then, the DOT harassed them to the point where most of them went out of business. It wasn't simply socialism, so much as cronyism, since the private bus lines and the public transit union had a vested interest in keeping their monopolies. The line owners were big contributors to politicians, as was the union.

Cronyism fits in quite well with socialist policies that prevent competition and raise the bar to new entries in markets. That's why larger corporations, which have whole divisions devoted to regulatory and tax code compliance, fight for stronger regulatory environments.

In NYC, van owners began covering routes that didn't get enough traffic for buses, charging a buck for each ride (which was less than the bus fare at the time). The city eventually agreed to let them run routes that the buses weren't running, but even then, the DOT harassed them to the point where most of them went out of business. It wasn't simply socialism, so much as cronyism, since the private bus lines and the public transit union had a vested interest in keeping their monopolies. The line owners were big contributors to politicians, as was the union.

Cronyism fits in quite well with socialist policies that prevent competition and raise the bar to new entries in markets. That's why larger corporations, which have whole divisions devoted to regulatory and tax code compliance, fight for stronger regulatory environments.

They differ cosmetically, but since progressives and the like are only influenced by aesthetics, those cosmetic differences mean a lot to them.

Cronyism is when the state has enough control of the economy to make political connections more important than productivity or any other market consideration.

Statism is when the state seeks the control described above.

Socialism is a less obviously corrupt version of statism, in which those pursuing it can present themselves as "champions of the poor", or the "common man" or whoever else that they think that they represent. It's a gloss on statism, and doesn't sound as violent as communism. Ultimately, however, a socialist is really just a communist who has run out of bullets.